Lore

The glass panels on the doors were bulletproof, but the alarm attached to them posed the bigger problem. Or would have, if an eleven-year-old Castor had been even slightly more resistant to a ten-year-old Lore’s diabolical strategy of only making bets she knew she’d win.

There was a single loose brick just above the doorframe. Lore used her pocketknife to ease it out and gave silent thanks to that lovesick hunter—the one Castor had spied using this trick to meet the man he’d been forbidden to marry.

Lore pulled out the Wheelz 4 Totz magnet from the pocket of her jeans, unwinding the shoestring she’d taped to it. Carefully, she dropped the magnet down through the opening in the wall and used the string to move it back and forth until she heard the telltale click of the magnet kissing the alarm’s sensor.

Please work, she thought. Please let this one thing be easy.

The alarm sensors had always been magnetic and were triggered when the magnet on the door was separated from the stationary half. It was a simple system that was usually effective, so hopefully they hadn’t upgraded to new laser-based devices.

Lore reached back into her pocket for the thin piece of plastic she’d cut from an empty Pepsi bottle. It took her a moment of maneuvering to wedge it in between the doors and pop the lower, weaker lock. She had to wait for the hunter to pass by overhead again before she inserted the blank bump key she’d bought from her neighborhood hardware store into the dead bolt. Wrapping the brick with the bottom of her T-shirt, she hit the key, forcing it in enough to be able to turn it, and, mercifully unlock the door.

Lore stood off to the side, her back flat against the other door, and pushed it open into the heavy curtain behind it with a satisfied smile. “You predictable idiots.”

For all the millions these families spent on security systems and weaponry, they still couldn’t bring themselves to seal these doors, or brick them up the way they had the windows. It would mean cutting off their own potential escape routes if another family or god ever attacked them here.

When it was clear no silent alarm had been triggered, Lore slipped inside and quietly shut the door behind her. She welcomed the caress of the AC and the relative darkness as she drew the shoestring through the hole, removed the magnet, and replaced the brick.

As she’d expected, the room was still being used for storage. It was a maze of boxes and old trunks, all smelling damp, as if they’d barely escaped a basement flood. Lore pawed through them until she found a moldering set of black hunter’s robes. She secured them around her ripped jean shorts and sweat-soaked black tank.

At the bottom of the trunk was a chipped mask. Lore stared at it, hating that she still felt sick at the thought of wearing something other than her family’s own mark.

You need it, she told herself. Take it. Just in case.

The one thing she hadn’t been able to find was some kind of blade or weapon.

“Well,” she muttered, as she pulled a lone screwdriver out of an abandoned toolbox. “It’s pointy.”

Lore slipped it into the hidden inner pocket of the robe. She pulled the hood up, then back down as she realized how ridiculous it would look.

“Come on, Perseous,” she whispered. “Let’s go seek.”

The layout of the hallway was exactly as she remembered it, with the exception of a few keypads that had been installed on a number of its doors. She glanced up, searching the ceiling for disguised cameras.

A voice cut through the quiet like a blade to the back of her neck.

“What are you doing up here?”

LORE SPUN AROUND. A man she didn’t recognize, wearing robes identical to her own, stood at the end of the hall, just at the top of the staircase.

“I—” she began, saying the first thing that came to mind. “I thought I heard something.”

The man’s gaze narrowed. Lore instinctively slid a hand inside her robe, toward the screwdriver, but forced herself to stop. She’d only look guiltier if she didn’t move toward him, so she did.

“Did he sound like he was in some kind of distress?” the man asked in the ancient tongue. A note of anxiety rang through the words. “I thought he had attendants with him.”

Attendants?

“It turned out to be nothing,” Lore said lightly, keeping out of the faint pool of candlelight from a nearby table. She gripped the mask tighter, wishing she’d just put the stupid thing on. “The floor is secure.”

Before she’d left the house, Lore had taken a sharpie and drawn the letter alpha, along with the bloodline’s mark, on her left wrist. It was a design she’d seen inked onto the chests and arms of the Achillides who had trained her. She idly pushed the sleeve up, pretending to scratch at some phantom itch.

The lines of the man’s face relaxed as he noticed the fake tattoo.

While there were always spies willing to do whatever was necessary to slip past another bloodline’s defenses, the hunters were superstitious enough to believe that putting another house’s mark on your body would anger your ancestors, causing them to abandon you.

Seeing as misfortune had been Lore’s constant companion for the last seven years, she was sure her own couldn’t possibly hate her more than they already did.

“Good,” the hunter said. “Let’s go downstairs. We should be able to get some food before they’ll want us back on watch. You’re one of Tassos’s girls, aren’t you?”

“Got it on the first try,” Lore said, letting her face relax into a smile. “How’s—”

A door at the other end of the hallway opened, and several small girls, no more than five years old, were ushered out of one of the rooms.

Lore’s heart clenched like a fist.

All the girls wore simple white tunics detailed with gold embroidery that matched their sandals, and belts. Different styles of diadems and ribbons had been woven into their braided hair.

A woman, her own dark curls in tight ringlets, emerged behind them. The violet silk of her long, draped gown had been printed with ancient symbols and illustrations, including one of Achilles poised for battle.

The woman motioned to the girls, and all of them, every last one of the nine, fell silent and still, their small bodies rigid with what Lore knew to be fear-honed obedience.

A man emerged from the room across the hall like a clap of thunder. Lore’s nostrils flared at the sight of him.